


muted

by outphan



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Anxiety, Dancing, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, No Plot/Plotless, Phil Lester Is A Sweetheart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 08:14:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15408774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outphan/pseuds/outphan
Summary: "The colours are muted, the sounds are a bit distant, the water tastes different. It’s like someone turned it down a bit - it being everything around Dan. He feels off, but completely functional."





	muted

**Author's Note:**

> written in half an hour and unbetad (unproofread in fact sorry about that) because I was experiencing the same thing so I just had to get it out of my system
> 
> this isn't an accurate description of anything, let alone anything he's ever experienced, this is just from my perspective, kind of projecting my stuff onto Dan
> 
> tw for obvious mentions of anxiety

The world is the wrong colour for Dan right now. Not completely desaturated like it becomes when he has a bad episode. He knows that. No, this is something different, not new, just far less common.

The colours are muted, the sounds are a bit distant, the water tastes different. It’s like someone turned it down a bit - it being everything around Dan. He feels off, but completely functional. He’s still able to reply to emails, like a few fanart or send a text message to his mum.

But something is not right. That something is nothing and everything in general and he can’t do anything to help it or to fix it. It’s like a constant itch under his skin, a constant muscle spasm in his thigh, a constant nagging to do anything. It’s there and there and there, and it just happened. He can’t get rid of it, he can’t make it better. It lingers there as he walks up and down the house.

He’s fidgety. There’s a constant shaking under his skin, like it’s deep in his body, but rationally he knows it’s not there. His fingers are twitching, constantly moving. It’s getting constantly electrocuted and not being able to shake that static off.

He’s doing stuff. He goes to the kitchen and opens the cupboards, then within a second he closes them. A minute later it’s the balcony door, but closes it when he feels rain on his naked toes. He goes to the bathroom to turn the light on, because he needs to do something.

Phil finds him when he’s rearranging the DVDs in the living room. He isn’t actually rearranging them, just taking them off the shelf and leaving them there because he can’t stay still to put them back. Phil will do it. He always does.

“Dan.” Phil puts his hand on his shoulders, but Dan immediately shakes them off. “Are you okay? Talk to me?”

He looks at Phil, eyes wide. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know if he’s okay or whether he can talk to him. It’s not easy to describe what he feels, not because Phil wouldn’t understand, but because Dan just can’t express himself. So he shrugs.

Phil keeps giving him The Look. He always worries about Dan, but especially when there’s something going on but he can’t say what he’s going through. He takes a couple of steps back, shaking his arms, trying to get rid of that surplus energy.

It doesn’t work. Of course it doesn’t work. That weird sensation is everywhere, he can’t wish it away. So he walks back to Phil, hugging him as tightly as he can.

That doesn’t work either. It’s not Phil’s fault, he knows, but a magical hug was supposed to cure it instantly. He lets go of him and goes downstairs, going into the bedroom. He takes a stroll around it before heading out again, going back upstairs. Phil’s doing the DVDs now.

“Thanks,” Dan says, but his voice rings foreign in his ears. 

“What’s going on, babe? You’re scaring me.”

“I don’t know,” he admits, walking up and down the living room. “It’s one of those, I think.”

“How bad?”

Dan sighs. “Four, I reckon. I was doing some business stuff and then I just… couldn’t.”

“What do you feel?”

Being in a relationship for almost 9 years made Phil an expert in Dan. He knows his ins and outs, what makes him tick. And he also knows what to ask Dan when it’s bad and what not force him to do.

“I don’t… Everything. I feel everything. It’s weird because the world is off, but I feel stuff and I can’t turn this off.” He shakes his arms once again.

“What would help?”

Dan shakes his head. It’ll go, he thinks. It always does. It’s just his mind playing tricks on him. There’s nothing they can do to end this, just wait. It’s a paradox, really. Waiting and doing nothing often slows it down, but Dan can’t sit and do something, even if it’s something he likes. He can’t go to bed and have a nap because then he’d have a blank ceiling to concentrate on and it would make him overthink stuff.

So instead, he walks. He walks up and down the living room, then downstairs, then upstairs again. He opens doors without needing anything, getting mugs without wanting to have a cuppa. 

“Come here.” Phil calls him over from the kitchen to the living room. “Let’s dance.”

“Phil, I can’t…”

“Just give it a try? You can go back to pacing if it doesn’t work.”

Dan sighs, but nods. So Phil hits play on his phone and  _ Toxic  _ starts playing. Dan would laugh if he wasn’t feeling off, but he still smiles. A classic Phil solution.

So they dance. First it’s Britney, then it’s  _ All Star,  _ then it’s  _ Shut Up and Dance.  _ It doesn’t exactly work, Dan still feels ten million ants under his skin, making him nervous and fidgety for absolutely no reason. But it takes his mind off of it a couple of seconds once in a while as he admires Phil’s wonderful hip movements.

It doesn’t help, but it’s a start. The world is still muted, the sounds are still a bit duller, but he knows it’ll go away. The nervousness will stop, his energy will be depleted, and the world will go back to the way it’s supposed to be. 

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr [@outphan](http://outphan.tumblr.com)


End file.
